Wife Vows to Take Back Archbishop

The woman who married an African archbishop said she doesn't know where he is but intends to "take him back" soon despite his decision to leave her and return to celibacy.

Milan daily Corriere della Sera published an interview Sunday that was conducted in Seoul, South Korea, where Maria Sung now works as an acupuncturist.

Sung, now 44, and Emmanuel Milingo, 71, were married in May in a group ceremony in New York led by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, head of the South Korea-based Family Federation for World Peace and Unification Movement.

Threatened with excommunication, Milingo announced in late August that he was heeding Pope John Paul II's appeal to abide by the vow of celibacy required by the Roman Catholic Church of its priests.

The archbishop then disappeared from public view.

Sung, in the interview, insisted that she considers herself still married to Milingo.

"To forget my husband is impossible, our marriage is eternal," Corriere della Sera quoted the woman who was previously married as saying.

The newspaper ran a photo of Sung and Milingo on their honeymoon in a Korean seaside resort. In the photo, a beaming Sun rests her head against the chest of Milingo, who was wearing his bishop's cross.

"Every night I fall asleep, thinking of him. I clutch the white rosary that he gave me," She told Corriere. "When I can no longer stand this suffering, I'll return. I'll take back my husband."